Ra and Ancestral Things

Firstly, belated PBP posts will be dealt with after Wednesday, which is my last exam. Can’t say when they’ll be up, but I’ll have the time to work on them properly then, so I’ll endeavour to post them as I finish them.

I’ve been doing my daily devotional rites for I think it’s close to a month or two now? Unexpected relationship with Ra is unexpected but nice, and I’ve just done a trial run of a weekly ritual for Him. He’s kind of claimed Sundays as His day, which is fine by me. I work with the rest of my Gods the rest of the week, so it doesn’t bother me. Needs some tweaking though as there’s just … something … missing. There’s an element there that I’m missing and I’m going to need to work out what that is and then do another trial run to see if that feels more complete.

I’ve kind of mocked up a Temple-style rite based on what I’ve got available to me. I do have Eternal Egypt on my wishlist, because I know there are modern-style Temple rites in there, but I can’t afford it right now, so my bodged-up version will have to do. It’s not bad, though. More purely Kemetic, because Ra insisted. As to what’s missing, I think it’s something to do with fire? But I don’t know. I’ll have to go over the rite again, once my exams are done, and see what needs to be added. It’s not a bad rite, though. It feels really good, but yeah. There’s just something missing. But that’s not a big problem. This is why I do trial runs, anyway, so I can figure out what’s working and what’s not.

My devotional practice, since I am offering to the Ancestors twice a day, has brought a closer awareness of Ancestral Things. They’re still just one great big ancestral mob at the moment; no one specific has turned up. But it’s nice knowing the threads of connection are beginning to be joined, because even though I consider myself somewhat dense when it comes to Ancestor communication, it’s still something I want to foster; they are part of the God Clan, after all. (And yes I know they’re not Gods. It’s … complicated.) It’s still an important part of my practices. (Also, just so we’re clear, I use ‘ancestors’ to mean not just bloodkin but also adopted, cultural, and spiritual ancestors as well.)

It’s been interesting, though, because what I call the Welsh mob and the English mob (as submobs of my big total ancestral mob) are reacting the most so far. They seem quite excited that finally there is living bloodkin who is open/accepting of what they keep calling ‘the old ways’ (and who is able to hear them so they can pass this on!). They must be ancestors from a loooooong time ago, though, because from what I’ve gathered, ‘the old ways’ are not some form of Welsh polytheistic reconstructionism (which would make sense in a bloodkin kind of way), but druidry. (…I did not see that coming.) (Also, I have a lot of Welsh bloodkin, fyi. English and Scottish too, but mostly (northern) Welsh. NO IRISH. Which is why I don’t do St Patrick’s Day. Not my holiday.)

I get the impression they’d like me to perhaps add druidry to my practice as an ancestral thing, but I’m not entirely sure yet. I am open to it; I’ve particularly looked at ADF, mostly because of a few other people I know who have been blogging about Dedicant’s Path stuff and it looked interesting, which is why I started reading up on it. I do know there are one or two other Druidic orders floating about too, but I haven’t looked into them, so I don’t know how similar (or not) they might be to ADF. Anything that requires IRL training is out, though, because there is nothing but a few scattered Wiccan covens in my city, from what I’ve been able to find. (I know THREE Pagans in a city of 2mil+ people. THREE. And one’s now an atheist! 😀 /go me.)

I think I could make ADF work if I persisted enough with it, and I know I don’t have that many theological differences with it. It also makes sense of a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated symbols and references and such that are only just beginning to make sense.

I did a reading with my Goddess oracle that indicated getting involved with ADF could be beneficial – Gaia came up as the trump, indicating I could use a deeper connection with the Earth, which I’ll admit isn’t really much of a focus for my Graeco-Roman-Kemetic stuff. It’s probably not a bad idea, even if I eventually don’t opt for ADF-style druidry. But I don’t want to jump in head first, even though I’ve already read through half the website and could wrangle some sort of Romano-British thing if I wanted to. Because I’m mainly interested in Graeco-Roman household/hearth practices, and I don’t need druidry to do that. So I want to wait and think and ponder and see which way I’m meant to go with this.

I am not averse to basing my hearth religion around ADF-style druidry either, because I’m already honouring Hestia (and Bast-Mut) as my hearth Deity(ies), and I love the Roman household cult as well. (One day there will be room for a Lararium, just you wait…) So I don’t see much conflict in that regard, and in that sense, I can see it as a nice complement to my other religious practices; it would probably give me more structure, tbh, and perhaps more of a connection to the Ancestors, and a much more solid heart/household practice. But I still want to wait, though. I’ll need at least a year or two if I’m going to study it seriously, so I want to make sure it’s a definite ‘this is what I want to do’ thing before committing that sort of time to it.

Has anyone else had this happen, that ancestors have asked for this kind of thing? Got any advice on how to manage it, either in a general sense, or with some flavour of not!Indo-European/other flavours of reconstructionism and ADF/druidry? How do you make it all work? (And before you ask, yes, I am assuming it is going to be hard work.)

Also, ADF types, what’s the importance of Patron Gods? I’ve seen them mentioned here and there, but are they necessary? Because I’m a bit leery of having that kind of relationship with anyone other than Sobek (He’s a possessive bastard, after all), and I can’t find any information on this to make a decision either way. (And no, I wouldn’t use Sobek in any ADF/druidry things either; He doesn’t fit there.) It’s legit the only issue I have with it at the moment. Would Hestia/Vesta be appropriate, if it’s a hearth-based kind of thing? I think She’s probably the only one Sobek would allow as a Patron in that situation, if I decided to go ahead and study ADF-style druidry.

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3 comments on “Ra and Ancestral Things”

If you want, I can send you a copy of the rite I do daily for S and O- it’s based off of the short daily rite from Eternal Egypt. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can actually see a copy of the daily rite in the google preview form of the book.

I haven’t had my ancestors ask me to do anything like that, but Set did tell me to go look into Shinto. At which point I took a long break from my kemetic practices (with his permission) to chase down Shinto information and such. And I now practice them side by side. Not sure if that’s helpful 😛

Actually, that would be awesome. I’d love to see that and maybe take inspiration from it. Send it to my email address (ibdjehutyATgmail.com). That would be brilliant, thanks. It may just help me figure these things out until I can get hold of the book myself.

That is interesting, though. I’ve been fascinated by Shinto and Amaterasu for years, but never quite enough to go off and study it. Maybe one day I’ll find time to research it properly. Then again, I’m pretty sure the three months I spent studying Judaism earlier in the year was Someone’s way of teaching me things I needed for this path as well, so. Stranger things have happened. But this ancestral thing is new. I’m going to have to do some more serious thought about it before I commit to it.

About Per Sebek

I'm Sobekemiti Isetemsaf, a child of the great Egyptian God Sobek, and this is His shrine. I first created this site about twelve years ago, wanting a space for Sobek to exist on the web as at the time, most of the information about Him was scattered and hard to find. I wanted to make a space where other people interested in Sobek could come and find all that information in one space, and thus, Per Sebek was born.

Here you'll find information about Sobek, both historical and experiential, as well as other information about my path, and other Gods I have relationships with, such as Aset/Isis, and Heru-sa-Aset.

If you've found this site useful at all, you are most welcome to leave a candle in the shrine for Him in thanks.

About Sobekemiti

Sasha is a 33 year old queer writer living in Australia. Zie writes both fiction and nonfiction, in an assortment of loosely-defined genres, and attempts to maintain more blogs than is strictly necessary. Zie has maintained Per Sebek in one form or another since 2004.
Zie is a practicing polytheist and pagan, following a Kemetic based path with Greek influences, amongst other things. Zie is also studying witchcraft. The main gods of hir path include Sobek, Heru-sa-Aset, Isis, Hekate, and whoever else turns up.